Christian Enlightenment
the moment a Christian, or a church, departs from the principle of revelation and goes into high criticism or intellectual understanding of the Bible, all spiritual authority is lost.
this is very relevant to the days in which we live and to the land in which we live. instead of attacking a city in the name of the Lord, the very spirit of the city gets into the life of the church. the local church becomes full of party strife and division, and believers become materialistic. the Bible is approached on the basis of ‘what i cannot understand, i will discard.’
if we submit the Word of God to our own intellect and refuse to believe in the possibility of absolute, authoritative revelation, the church loses its power and authority. and if it loses the ability to say, ‘thus saith the Lord,’ it has no answer to the problems of our times.
during the last century we have talked about the spread of modernism & neo-orthodoxy as if those things were new. but they are as old as the New Testament.
…if you want an enlightened mind on the Word of God, you have to live a crucified life.
that’s the principle.“
{ alan redpath >> the royal route to heaven }
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bibling, deep thoughts, know what you believe | May 29th, 2009
I love where you said “what I do not understand, I will discard”. One cannot change or choose just part of the Bible to accommodate the way the want to live their life! The Bible is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago! Yes, the world around has changed & is changing, but God’s word does & can not be changed. It is the solid part of life. It is the guide of how to live life by giving the glory to God for every minute of the day, no matter the situation. You cannot live life by being self-centered & authoritative. Submitting to living life according to God’s Word is not always easy. But, He’s always there, ready to teach us how to become selfless & teachable. :)
Good stuff man. Thanks for sharing
Gene,
I think there is much weight in, “…’what i cannot understand, i will discard…’,” especially as this deals with submitting fully to the Word of God as our authority. If we are honest, how many things in Scripture have we casted aside because we did not understand it, or it simply did not agree with our understanding? I know I used to do that very thing, and I tossed much aside.
Thus saith the Lord can be so terrifying when it threatens to shake our foundation of tradition and personal sense of right and wrong. But the word of the Lord is like a fire and a hammer (Jeremiah 23:29), it both consumed and shattered me. And I found the Word of the Lord to be better and greater than any tradition -which has brought about great conflict.
It seems like you have found an interesting read. May it bless you.
Blessings,
Michael
Hi Gene. I met you in college, I am friends with some of your friends like Jeff and Steph, Derrick and Laurel, and Mike (to name a few).
I want to make a couple of remarks about the above quote. I agree with it in many ways. The bible is God’s revelation to humanity about how to join his redemptive mission in the world! However, I get a bit suspicious when we start saying that applying intellectual study to the bible is a departure from spiritual authority. Sometimes, the intellectual challenge actually challenges and can help us understand this authoritative text even better. I think that we need to use all of the Academic methods available to us to know the scriptures in their historical context better. Anytime we are afraid of this, we settle for what we have always known, rather than the possibility of their being something more in the text.
With that said, i do agree with the above comments about discarding what doesn’t fit our lives. We can’t simply dismiss what makes us uncomfortable.